Landscape fabric, weed barrier and weed barrier fabric are names for the same product. It is a black mesh type of plastic that is used extensively in landscaping to keep weeds out of your garden. Does it keep the weeds out? Does it let water through to the plants? Lets have a look at the effectiveness of landscape fabric.
Landscape Fabric – Weed Barrier Cloth
This is how landscape fabric is advertised to work. You place it on the ground and cover it with mulch. Weeds already in your soil can’t grow through the cloth so they die. Weeds can’t grow on the cloth, so any sprouting seeds also die. Voila! No weeds.
Don’t Buy Into the Landscape Fabric Myth.
It is true that seeds sprouting under the cloth will not grow through it. However, strong perennial weeds will eventually grow through or around it. Many perennial weeds can grow quite a distance under ground and since landscape fabric comes in 3 and 4 foot wide roles they only need to grow a few feet to find an opening.
If you use a thin cover of mulch, weeds do not grow in the mulch because it is just too dry there. But in no time at all you will see the landscaping fabric stick up through the mulch and then it looks terrible in your garden.
If you use more mulch to hide the weed barrier, wind and water deposits soil particles and plant remains onto the cloth. In no time at all you have the perfect seed mix sitting right above the weed barrier, and weeds start to grow. Believe me when I say that plant roots can grow through the holes in the landscape fabric.
Weed barrier cloth is no better for controlling weeds than a 4 inch layer of mulch.
Landscape Fabric Stops Rain
Weed barrier cloth is porous (ie it has holes in it) and it is advertised as ‘letting the rain flow through’. This is mostly a gardening myth. The reality is that some rain will go through the holes, but much of it flows over top of the cloth and away from your plants, which remain dry.
Weed Barrier Sucks the Life out of Your Soil
I’ve talked many times about the importance of life in the soil. Landscape fabric reduces the air reaching the soil, and prevents any new organic matter from getting to the surface of the soil. It does not take long and the dew worms, microbes and other soil life, which depends on air and food, either leave or die. When this happens, there is a reduction of nutrients for your plants, and soil structure starts to degrade. Neither is good for your plants.
Permanent Plantings are Damaged
In permanent landscapes, plant roots will grow into and through the landscape fabric. At some point in the future when it is replaced (needs to be replaced every 10 years or so), you will damage the roots.
Is There a Good Use for Landscaping Fabric?
Maybe. If you are planting trees in uncultivated land that is very weedy, there is a benefit to using the weed barrier around the tree for a few years in order to keep the weeds down, and give the tree a chance to get established. The tree roots have less competition for space and nutrients. The loss of water due to the weed barrier is offset by the fact that the weeds are no longer using the water. The landscape fabric should be removed after a couple of years once the tree is large enough and strong enough to compete with the weeds.
Recent scientific findings, reported by Dr Linda Chalker-Scott, suggest that a 6- 12 inch layer of wood chip mulch is just as effective. I have used the landscape fabric, as described above, for trees planted in fields, but have now switched to using just mulch.
More Reasons for NOT Buying Landscape Fabric
- it is a plastic and we don’t need more plastic in the environment
- plant roots growing on top of the fabric can’t withstand a drought as easily
- moving plants, and dividing plants is a nightmare because the weed barrier prevents you from digging new holes
- if you do get weeds they are near impossible to pull out
- it is relatively expensive for a product that does almost nothing!
References:
1) Photo Source: Two Women and a Hoe
Amazing topic. I just paid $6500 for my landscape bed to be extended out 3 feet and filled with some new plants and covered in river rock. Now I see many thick strands of coarse grass popping through the area that was extended. I am thinking there was no killing of the grass prior to laying a weed barrier or the barrier is not of any quality. Thoughts I can relay to my landscaper? I paid for a nearly maintenance free landscape and now I have tons of weeding grass to do.
Weed barrier should stop grass from growing through, but it won’t stop new grass seed from growing on top of it.
http://obcnw.com/groundcovercloth4x300.aspx This is the fabric I use to great success. This is the type that is used in nurserys and greenhouses to provide a weed free surface to grow potted plants on. It is not covered with mulch. I never cover it with mulch. I use it to maintain weedfree low maintenance rows between raised beds. I use it to maintain weed free low maintenance rows between berry rows. Just sweep 3 times a year. I also use it to start berry/shrub/hedge rows. 2 rows drip, strip or 3-4 foot fabric, cuts holes every 3-5 feet, plants shrubs/ berries/hedges. Do not cover with mulch. A little bit of weeding in cut holes the first year. But besides that only sweep occasionally. After 4-5 years the ugly fabric is under the hedge row and is not seen or you can remove then as the hedge row exclude its own weeds by being a solid hedge row. I have established many hedge rows of berry bushes, deciduous and evergreen shrubs this way. It is the best way I have found for low cost, low labor hedge row establishment.
That material in not the same as what is normally referred to as landscape fabric and available to consumers, at least no in North America. I would not recommend this fabric anywhere you want to have water pass through it. I believe some of it is impregnated with a herbicide to help keep down weeds.
Great advice. I did, though, use paper landscape cloth under a hedgerow, albeit with mulch on top. It was meant to last one season and then decay, which it did. Perhaps mulch alone would have worked as well, but this did work.
Your website is much appreciated!
There is a serious misunderstanding here. There are 2 types of weed
blocker material. The one you are describing works just as you say,
the other lets ALL water and liquid fertilizer thru. The first is plastic sheet with small Perforated Landscape holes. The second is spun bond plastic made by spraying extremely fine (finer than hair) on a moving belt several inches thick and then pressed to a thin sheet. No
roots or seedlings can penetrate but water flows thru like a filter material with little resistance. It is by oz sq yard to heavy depending
on how much abuse under mulch it needs.
The one I am discussing is not “plastic sheet with small Perforated Landscape holes”.
You claim the second kind lets all water flow through – prove it. Where is the reference that tested such a product?
Any type of barrier to the movement of water will back up the water, and then it starts running somewhere else. No material with small holes will work as well as no material at all.
If your using landscape fabric in the same places you grow plants of course it is not suppressing weeds probably because you cut holes in it for your plants. Weeds and plants are both plants same result. However if you use landscape fabric where it’s supposed to be used and you follow instructions of course it will suppress weeds. There are many instances where it is actually code to use landscape fabric. Weed barrier and landscape fabric are two totally different things. Same with a $100 roll and a $10 roll. Use some not so common sense people. It is a myth to suggest either product would kill insects in the ground unless you laid it in a cube they will just crawl around it. Besides are you gonna lay 4″ of mulch underneath your paving stones.
I am so glad that I stumbled onto your website while researching weed barrier cloth. I will be using your insight regularly.
I am planting some wildflower seeds…would you recommend temporarily using the cloth to cover them instead of peat moss to keep birds honest?
You could but it needs to be removed before the seeds start to grow, and in a seed mix, different types of seed germinate at different rates. I don’t think any fabric is a good solution for this.
Can it cause ants to nest more under the fabric I’m finding lots my friend said it can
No idea – ants are everywhere.
I couldnt agree more. I was going to sell my house to my daughter and her fiance. I moved out and they moved in. He proceeded to put down landscaping fabric almost everywhere. Their engagement didnt work out and I ended up having to move back since they no longer wanted to buy the house. WHAT A NIGHTMARE landscaping fabric is ! Ok people, so if your going to use it anyway despite being warned, please put rocks on top of it and not mulch. Save yourself a headache.Mulch doesnt stay mulch forever. It breaks down and bio degrades into….DIRT. Then the weeds just grow right on top of the fabric. Once they start growing on top of the ” new” dirt, their roots get strong and just punch right through the fabric, becoming entangled into the fabric. In the past ive never had any trouble removing weeds. Ide just take a shovel and remove it fairly quickly…easy peasy…until…the dreaded fabric that is. What a special kind of hell it is removing weeds where fabric has been laid !
Hello – I have a question – we have a large area that we have previously covered with mulch =however my husband goes crazy with the leaf blower each fall to remove leaves – however it also removes most of the bark mulch each year – is there any heavier kind of a product that could withstand the leaf blowing each fall ?
Use arborist wood chips which tend to be larger. Or leave the leaves in the garden whee they belong.
Hey.
I have found one of the best weed suppression systems is gypsum sheets ie plasterboard.
It is long lasting but breaks down over time to cardboard and gypsum.
I have a builder for a fayher in law so score a fair bit of it.
I mainly use it on service areas and then cover it with mulch.
Approx breakdown time is 2 to 3 years
Why do you think gypsum from drywall sheets is good for your soil? The inside of the sheets is calcium sulfate dihydrate. Adding some calcium will do no harm, but adding a lot is not good for soil or plants.
Just spent $20,000 plus on landscaping and he put weed barrier cloth everywhere. Wish I had of known.drip systom underneath. My question is can u water from top as plants look like they need water. Very frustrated with this landscaping company!!!
You can water on top.
I want to make a “rock garden” in a 16×8 area that is currently covered with grass. I plan to lay down 3 inches of rock. I plan to plant one agave plant, and four Texas red yucca plants in the ground under the rock. The rest of the stuff in the rock garden will be in containers. So those four plants are the only things I need the soil to be good for. How do you recommend I kill the grass first? I was going to put down cardboard AND landscape fabric under the rock to help prevent grass and weeds growing. But now I’m not so sure after reading all this. I was gonna cut holes in the cardboard and fabric with a razor blade type cutter, dig the holes and plant, then lay the rock down
You can put down cardboard, but newspaper is better. Keep it watered so it does not fly away as you put it down. It will decompose after a few months. Don’t use the landscape fabric. If you go to 5″ of small rocks you will get very few new weeds.
If you’re landscaper used the professional grade material, then you should be fine. Fabric is not cheap but it is worth it. Worked on over 100 homes with my commercial grade fabric and not 1 complaint.
Commercial grade still has all the problems of cheaper brands – don’t use it.
No, two completely different products altogether. A 3.5 oz fabric is too thick for weeds to penetrate and also comes in 3 feet, 4 feet, 5 feet, 6 feet, 7 feet or 8 feet widths. It also allows water to get through very easily.
The 3.5 oz is so thick and durable that you can barely poke a knife through it while the cheap hardware stuff is too light that you often accidently poke your fingers through it while putting it down.
I’m going to assume that you don’t have much experience with the 3.5 oz fabric or your article would read completely different.
Do you have a scientific study that shows how well water flows through such a thick layer?